At the United States
Olympic marathon trials on Saturday, the runners confirmed that women are far
stronger when they stay in formation. The midday race through the sweltering
downtown streets had runners staggering through the final switchbacks and stuffing
cold, wet washcloths into their mouths for relief. But in the end, Amy Cragg
won the women’s race, followed by Desiree Linden and Shalane Flanagan. On the
men’s side, Galen Rupp dominated, with Meb Keflezighi finishing second and
Jared Ward third. Cragg, 32, and Flanagan, 34, the defending trials champion,
who train together in Portland, Ore., broke from the pack halfway through the
race and built a commanding lead, oblivious to any competition. In matching
Nike uniforms and visors, they mirrored each other as they covered almost the
entire race in a synchronized pace until the final mile, when Flanagan’s pace
slowed and Linden closed in and overtook her for second.
Draped in an American
flag, Cragg urged Flanagan to the finish, where she collapsed into Cragg’s arms
and was carried to a wheelchair. Cragg had slowed her pace significantly to
sustain her flagging partner, and she came close to sacrificing her victory to
ensure that they both finished in the top three and qualified for the Olympic
team. “When I realized she was in trouble, I told her, ‘One step at a time, one
mile at a time, just get to the next water station,’ ” said Cragg, who finished
in 2 hours 28 minutes 20 seconds. “At first I thought she was just going
through a bad patch, which is common in marathons. Then I looked at her and saw
she was turning bright red. So I kept her calm. I knew no matter how bad she
was hurting, she could make it happen, but I knew I needed to help.” The effort
was a striking departure from the marathon trials in 2000, when training in
American distance running was fragmented. Both of the top finishers that year
had trained in isolation — the woman, Chris Clark, mostly on a treadmill in
Alaska — and failed to make the “A” standard, meaning the United States sent only
one male and one female representative that year to the Olympics. They both
finished far from the top.
In contrast, despite
the arduous conditions on Saturday, the top three women, all older than 30, ran
the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-fastest times in the history of the trials.
Linden finished in 2:28:54 and Flanagan in 2:29:19. “In 2000, American distance
running hit rock bottom, and it was clear that in this sport we need each
other, and that we’re stronger when we train together,” said Mary Wittenberg,
the chief executive of Virgin Sport, who organized the 2007 men’s Olympic
marathon trials in New York. “What we saw today proved that, both before the
race, when Shalane and Amy talked consistently about how they were going to run
as a team no matter what, and during it, when they took off together like it
was just another training run.” The trials are a rare forum for teamwork and
strategy, when third place means almost as much as first place because the top
three qualify for the Olympics.
In this case, the
camaraderie had been well rehearsed over several months of training, after
Flanagan, the fastest marathoner going into the trials, encouraged Cragg four
months ago to move to Portland to prepare for the trials with her. They
sustained each other through rough patches in Saturday’s race, checking in and
trading positions when the other’s strength waned. When Cragg saw Flanagan
succumbing to heat exhaustion, she ran to get water bottles and slowed her pace
to report on the field. “On the third loop, I said I’m handling this for us;
the goal is not to get on the team just ourselves,” Cragg said. “Both of us
have to be there.” The teamwork resulted in redemption for Cragg, who finished
fourth at the last Olympic marathon trials. It is the first time a woman has
gone from a fourth-place finish to a first. The men’s race was far more
competitive, with the top two finishers emerging from a crowded field that had
no clear front-runner for more than half the race. It was the first marathon
for Rupp, 29, who won a silver medal in the Olympic 10-kilometer race in 2012,
but it was the 24th for Keflezighi, a four-time Olympian who won the silver
medal in the marathon in the Athens Games in 2004. Keflezighi, who turns 41 in
May, will be the oldest American Olympic marathoner ever.
Rupp won his debut
marathon in 2:11:12, faster than the rest of the field by more than a minute.
Rupp, the American record holder in the 10,000 meters, is the first runner to
win the trials with a half-marathon qualifying time. He had announced only two
weeks ago that he would compete, and he emerged as a favorite. Ward, 27, who
wrote his master’s thesis on “optimal pace strategy in a marathon,” won the
United States Marathon Championships last year. The field for the event was the
largest ever, with 166 men and 202 women at the start. It was also the hottest
such race in history, with a starting temperature of 66 degrees. The
temperature was a good indicator of the prize the athletes battled for on
Saturday — another sweltering marathon, at the Rio Games in August.
